POP MUSIC REVIEW : With Al Green, Quality of Singing Overcomes Quantity of Songs

There aren’t many singers who could get away with the performance Al Green gave in his early show at the Coach House Saturday night. It’s not just that he only appeared for 55 minutes--he’s been known to perform for as little as 35. But, evidently favoring a worn throat, he spent nearly half his time onstage mugging, featuring band solos and exhorting the audience to sing--in short, doing everything but sing himself.

On top of that, the Rev. Green ended the set with a bit of show-biz shuck and jive that was unbecoming to a man of the cloth. He pondered his watch and declared that the club required he end the show then but that they were going to go ahead and jam all night anyway. And then he curtly ended the no-encore show three minutes later. (In truth, he could have performed another 40 minutes before the club’s schedule would have even neared disruption.)

But, as Green is far from being just any performer, there was still more than enough magic in his show to make up for its lacks. Even when mute, his animated face and jump-for-joy moves were high entertainment. And when he did deign to sing, his fatigued voice soared and shouted with a feeling and abandon that only a handful of other living singers could match.

When not performing in clubs, Green pastors a Southern gospel church, and his concerts are nearly unique in bringing close the pleasures of Saturday night and the exultation of Sunday morning. His miraculous voice can run the gamut of human expression: celebration, anguish, rapture, humor, sex--it was all there in the nimble twists his vocal cords took Saturday. As with all of Green’s shows of the last several years, he freely mixed his secular and gospel material. Just as soul music was largely borrowed from African-American gospel music, Green is now returning the favor. His 1987 “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” and 1989 “As Long as We’re Together” offered Green’s most insistent dance grooves since his mid-’70s “Love and Happiness,” along with some decidedly uptown synthesizer lines. His most heated, fervent vocals were in those songs and in “Jesus Will Fix It,” which found him repeating and embellishing a rhythmic phrase until it seemed like a locomotive coursing through the song. Throughout the show, his 10-piece band was so responsive that it could have been an extension of his body.

Green hushed the band to a whisper on “Amazing Grace,” allowing him a near-empty canvas on which to paint a vocal as bursting with color and feeling as any Van Gogh. His incredible, aching falsetto notes alone justified the ticket price. He gave a similar treatment to the Bee Gees’ “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart,” forgoing the microphone at one point to let his powerful plaints reach the audience directly.

He also performed a sterling rendition of Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay.” His own hits, though, received short shrift. Most of “Let’s Stay Together” was devoted to an audience sing-along, while he delivered only a few teasing choruses of “Tired of Being Alone.” It was no less teasing when he had his hot horn section repeatedly punch out the clarion lines of “Love and Happiness” and then didn’t bother to sing the song.

The show was opened by the L.A. band Mama Stud. Though the six-piece outfit played a potentially intriguing blend of soul and folk music, its seven-song set seemed both unformed and unfunky. Even on King Floyd’s “Groove Me Baby,” they seemed unable to settle into a workable groove, and there was a decided lack of character or vocal control.